(10AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
Shirly Sherrod was railroaded.
It is the matter of every day for GLB people in the military. And there is no such thing as a context defense.
They will not ask you or change their minds because your homosexuality was taken out of context.
The character of your accusers will not be taken into account.
The anger at the unfairness of your discharge after years of faithful service will NOT be there. Instead, you will be told to get a life. You will be told you want a pony.
You are a political football. It is for you to hide in silence. It is for you to serve in silence. It is for you to be told the value of honor and truthfulness, and yet also for honor to be considered keeping your big mo mouth shut about your mo-ness.
And it won’t matter if you tell. The character of your accusers will not be considered.
It could be a friend who felt she was slighted by you last Christmas. It could be someone who wanted sex favors from you and didn’t get them. It could be your MOTHER who is your accuser. It could be a police officer who saw a same sex civil marriage contract on your kitchen table, through your kitchen window, investigating a routine complaint, who felt it was his “obligation” to inform the military of your tawdriness. It could be someone who thinks that homosexuality is an abomination, while they play slap and tickle with the female members of their regiment.
It could be a thief. But their character will not matter. At that time, at the time your service is spit upon, you will be told to get a life. You will be told to get a job, that your service means nothing, and that you are whining.
And Keith Olbermann will most likely not get on national TV and berate President Obama on your behalf. You see, you are a number. You are one of the hundreds or thousands of people discharged after a career of honorable service in the military every year.
Oh, he has before, but you are fucking number. Get in line. And the anger, oh, the anger will not be there, because President Obama has more important things to do than to worry about you. He cannot help you, even though he can. DADT is going away, even though it isn’t.
Your words, any defense you may have, will not be taken into context. If you are a woman and like women romantically, you are guilty. If you are a guy and you like the shape of a pair of well turned glutes or six pack abs, you are GUILTY.
And, as you look for a job in this economy in which there is 25% unemployment, this selective anger may irritate you. It may in fact enrage you. It may strike you as odd, that while hundreds and thousands of irreplacable military personnel are told to go hunt for food in trash cans or find a job flipping burgers is all your sacrifice was worth, a huge blow up occurred over ONE WOMAN who was, yes, mistreated, as you were, for a lifetime of faithful service.
While those who are outraged at Shirley Sherrod turn right around and tell you Obama could not protect you, even though he’s the Commander in Chief.
He has to observe the rule of law, you know. Prosecuting whistleblowers, declining to defend marijuana cases (as you know, he has to defend DADT and DOMA, marijuana being somehow different), continuing to have torture bases, and suspending habeus corpus, not being considered within the purview of the Rule of Law.
Welcome to America 2.0. Where Keith Olbermann talks about the fomenting of “hate for Americans, by Americans” but millions of Obama supporters will tell you that you want a pony and that giving you justice in your life is the matter of wanting a pony, and that good soldiers wait, perhaps justice cannot be found for you as it is for others, as if you are a six year old girl.
Because that’s what you are. Not someone who fought and risked your life for your country. To the Democrats, you are a six year old girl.
Keith Olbermann is not wrong. But the anger is interesting. Would that such anger be found for masses of injustice as it is for the singular.
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DADT is bullshit. Obama should get it over with and repeal it. Will he?
If Sherrod proved anything, it was that Obama’s administration is afraid of its own shadow. I say that as an Aesop metaphor, not a Jungian one. You have to be delusional to think that they will resolve the things they promised to take care of.
I read today that Dan Choi had been discharged at the end of last month. I must’ve missed the massive demonstration that caused.
Point well made. 🙂
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of the US is an extreme individualism. Thus:
Would that such anger be found for masses of injustice as it is for the singular.
is the predictable result. There will always be outrage over particular individual cases, allowing of particular individual solutions, but collective problems requiring collective solutions are simply not to be admitted. The very idea of the collective threatens the hegemonic status of hyper-individualism and thus cannot be tolerated even entering into the discourse.